Shuttle Lifts Off With Spy Cargo : Satellite Built for Listening In on Soviet Union

The space shuttle Discovery rode into orbit Thursday, bearing a $300-million secret military spy satellite built to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union from the heavens.

The reusable spaceship, carrying five military astronauts on its third flight, rose majestically off launch pad 39A at 2:50 p..m., piercing a nearly cloudless sky.

Although the satellite is reportedly capable of tracking Soviet missile tests and listening in on military and diplomatic communications, details of the mission to launch it are shrouded in their own set of clouds.

In an attempt to thwart efforts by the Soviet Union to determine the shuttle’s specific goal, Pentagon and National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials refused to give any details about the cargo or specifics about the flight.

Soviets Could Compensate

Officials fear that such information could make it easier for the Soviet Union to adjust its own flow of intelligence data to make it less susceptible to U.S. interception in the skies.

So, although NASA officials said there were no abnormalities to the liftoff, they refused to say whether it occurred precisely on schedule.

“If that was known, that would be an indication for the Soviet Union about the mission and the type of payload we have boosted,” said Air Force Lt. Col. John R. Booth. “It could tell them who, what, when, where and why.”

The space agency is operating under orders from its Air Force customers, who are paying $31.2 million of the mission’s approximately $100-million price tag. It has refused to disclose how long the spacecraft will remain in orbit, on what is the 15th flight of a space shuttle. Nor has the agency disclosed Discovery’s orbiting path.

In a spare announcement, the agency said that the five astronauts--Navy Capt. Thomas K. Mattingly, the commander; Air Force Lt. Col. Loren J. Shriver; Marine Lt. Col. James F. Buchli; Air Force Maj. Gary E. Payton and Air Force Maj. Ellison S. Onizuka--”settled down to housekeeping chores of the first day in orbit” 90 minutes into the flight.

The crew is expected to launch the satellite at a period when it will be out of range of the prying electronic eyes of Soviet satellites.

The supersensitive cargo carried into space in the shuttle’s hold is said to bear two huge parabolic antennas. One is intended to intercept radio, radar and other electronic signals from the western Soviet Union, and the other is designed to relay the signals to another U.S. communications satellite, which will transmit them to a ground station.

Such satellites are placed in what is known as “geosynchronous” orbits 22,300 miles above the Equator, where their speed is the same as that of the rotating Earth, keeping them locked in the same position above the planet.

To boost the satellite into its intended high-altitude orbit from the shuttle’s path 175 to 200 miles above the Earth, an “inertial upper stage” booster was being used. The booster failed in its only previous use, on a flight in April, 1983.

Bill Rice, a spokesman for the Boeing Co., which makes the booster, said it is designed to lift a maximum cargo of 5,000 pounds into geosynchronous orbit and is needed for satellites with “large appendages”--such as antennas--that cannot be sent into orbit by other methods that involve spinning.

The mission, designated 51-C, was the first such intelligence assignment for the shuttle, which is reportedly working as a launching vehicle not only for the Air Force but for the nation’s most secret spying organization, the National Reconnaisance Office.

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger tried to block publication of reports about the cargo, and the Pentagon said Thursday that it was launching an investigation into news leaks that made the information public. The probe, which will be aided by the Justice Department, is concentrating on employees of government agencies, not on reporters, Pentagon spokesman Michael I. Burch said.

Pentagon officials emphasized that despite the rudimentary reports on the spy satellite, a considerable amount of important information about it remains well hidden from the public.

As part of the secrecy of the flight, the chatter between the astronauts and flight controllers here and at the Johnson Space Center in Houston was masked. NASA sent it through electronic scrambling devices to thwart eavesdropping.

The launch was picture-perfect.

The three-day freeze that caused the planned Wednesday liftoff to be postponed had given way to temperatures near 60 degrees. As the searing flame of the burning solid rocket fuel burst out of the twin boosters attached to the spacecraft, Discovery began to rise. It was well off the launch pad and on its way over the Atlantic before the roar of its engines reached out across the lagoons and marshes on the sprawling space center.

The spacecraft remained visible to the naked eye for 4 1/2 minutes. By then, it was more than 200 miles from the space center.

At the gates to the space complex, armed guards stationed at checkpoints examined badges of those entering and compared them with pictures on drivers’ licenses, in a rare display of tightened security.

The cluster of well-wishers who greeted crew members as they emerged from their quarters on the way to the launch pad was limited, and news photographers, normally escorted to the area, were kept away.

Soviet trawlers, which customarily track the initial stages of the shuttle’s flight, were not on their normal station off Cape Canaveral, Air Force Capt. Martin Hauser said.

Discovery was working for the first time with a payload almost entirely dedicated to military uses.

But the ship carried two non-classified experiments in its mid-deck lockers. They had been scheduled for earlier missions but later delayed.

One, designed by an Australian team, is intended to measure in weightlessness the impact of diseases on the flow of blood. Diseased blood samples were taken from six persons with such illnesses as cancer, diabetes and hypertension.

The other experiment is being conducted to determine the behavior of weightless fluids moving from one tank to another. It is intended to provide information for satellite refueling missions and is being conducted by the space agency, the Air Force and Martin-Marietta Corp.

The cold weather that delayed the flight was made even more difficult for the shuttle by high humidity on the launch pad, one mile from the Atlantic Ocean.

Hugh Harris, a space agency spokesman, said that “there was some more ice buildup” than in previous flights, but that it was not a serious concern.

The ice builds up when the shuttle’s liquid fuel--hydrogen, at -423 degrees Fahrenheit, and oxygen, at -297 degrees Fahrenheit--is pumped into the 15-story brown main external tank that is attached to the spacecraft’s underside. Sheets of ice tearing off the tank under the tremendous force of the launch can break off the thermal tiles protecting the shuttle on its return to Earth’s atmosphere.

The tank itself is jettisoned after its fuel is used up, and burns up as it falls through the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. The solid fuel boosters tear off the shuttle two minutes into the flight and are recovered in the Atlantic Ocean for reuse.